Reid grabbed hold.
They flew into space. A sensation of surfing over a wave at a phenomenal speed gripped him. His heart echoed in his ears. A golden light sparked and exploded. His arm tingled with a scalding heat. Thane hadn’t said anything about pain. His vision cleared. Reid wobbled on his feet. Cold air blasted over him. Pine trees swayed on the top of the mountain.
“Man, I miss doing that.” Thane turned to him. His brows lowered. “Reid?”
The world around Reid went black. He woke up on the ground in the woods near the cabin. Thane stood over him. Reid sat up. For a brief moment, his head swam. “What happened?”
“You fainted.”
“I didn’t faint.” Reid clasped Thane’s hand and used the leverage to get up. “I just got dizzy. You should have warned me it would hurt. It felt like my hand was on fire.”
“That’s strange.” Thane frowned. “Did you feel or see anything else?”
On the way to the deck, Reid flexed his numb hand. “I saw something like sparks for a second but no tunnel. This isn’t working. Just take me back.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m not asking you to stay in the present. You can drop me off and come right back to Celine.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Reid met Thane’s direct gaze. An “oh shit” feeling gripped his gut. “This is the part that really sucks, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, you can say that. Once we cross months or years in time, we’re wiped from memory. If I take you back, Celine will forget me and our life together.”
The images he’d experienced of him and Lauren having sex the night that she’d found him…. Were they real? “Did Lauren and I have a thing going on in the present?”
“You slept together before our last mission.” Thane glanced into the cabin. “As far as you being serious about her, I doubt it. Before I left, I got a lecture from you on why I should focus on strictly booty calls.”
What he had with Lauren didn’t fit as a booty call. It also wasn’t in the category of a relationship. “All the things we’ve done together. There’s bound to be something left behind. What will Lauren think?”
“If it’s a photo, recording, or something we’ve written, it disappears. Anything else, her mind will rationalize it. The object was already there or belongs to someone else. Same thing if it’s something you’ve done and she can’t figure it out. That’s why we don’t leave evidence behind. Police the place before you leave. Get rid of anything you can’t phase with you. If something does come up, I’ll cover for you. Celine is telling Lauren the cover story. You and I had a falling out and it broke up the band.”
“How much does Celine know about you?”
“She knows how we met here in the future and that I traveled time to get to her. She knows you, Dalir, and the team exist. I didn’t go into why I have to stay here. She was confused about us enough without tossing that into the mix. How she felt about me terrified her. She didn’t understand why things were moving so fast between us.”
“And she believed you?”
“Not until I phased across the room.” Thane’s lips twitched. “She fainted, too.”
“I told you—I didn’t faint.” Reid rested his arms on the railing. Lauren wouldn’t have to deal with the shock. It couldn’t get any more screwed up than him leaving and her forgetting him. His chest grew tight. Something bigger than both of them demanded he return to his time. As much as he wanted to stay with Lauren, he couldn’t.
He didn’t remember Thane, but every part of him sensed their loyalty to each other ran deep. He wouldn’t make him choose between helping him or staying with Celine. He had to regain his memory and make it back without Thane’s help.
“We don’t have to figure out a solution tonight.” Thane gripped Reid’s shoulder. “Sleep on it.” He left.
Tiredness weighed down on Reid along with information overload. He slipped quietly into the bedroom.
Lauren sat up in bed. “Hey, how did it go?”
“We talked.” He undressed and lay down beside her.
“Celine told me about the band.”
“She did?” The sincerity in her gaze fueled stabs of guilt, but how could he tell her this crazy story? He was that guy on her do-not-date list, sworn to duty, just like her dad.
Oh and by the way, once I travel time, how you feel, what you want, it won’t matter. None of it can exist.